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6. MONOTHEISM & REINCARNATION
Apparently, the earliest concept of reincarnation in its materialistic form was that of Buddhism. Here life continues - not as an identity - but as a cosmic element.
"Men have, O young man, deeds as their very own, they are inheritors of deeds, deeds are their matrix, deeds are their kith and kin, and deeds are their support. It is deeds that classify men into high or low status" (Majjhima Nikaya 135,4).
In Buddhism, "only karma is passing from one life to another, using the illustration of the light of a candle, which is derived from another candle without having a substance of its own. In the same manner, there is rebirth without the transfer of a self from one body to another. The only link from one life to the next is of a causal nature. In the Garland Sutra (10) we read:
According to what deeds are done Do their resulting consequences come to be; Yet the doer has no existence." This is the Buddha's teaching.
"Classical Buddhist doctrine postulates the existence of skandhas, which are unrelated psychic "causes" that are dissolved upon death and reactivated at birth. However, this is different from the Hindu concept of an individual soul reincarnating; it is more impersonal. Each individual is born with characteristics from a variety of past lives and other karmic sources, just as an automobile might be assembled from miscellaneous parts in a junkyard."
http://www.ccel.us/reincarnation.chap3.html
If the cars in the junkyard are all of poor quality, the resultant rebuild also will be poor. If they are good, in general we will get another good car even from the junkyard.
Jainism is probably the earliest form continuity of ego as is understood by reincarnation today.
"According to Jainism, in addition to matter and energy, space and time, there are three more entities in the universe: innumerable individual souls, principle of motion and principle of rest. A soul is a distinct entity, different from other entities such as matter, energy, space and time. Further, life of an individual involves interactions between his/her soul and the environment - animate as well as inanimate. As long as a worldly being remains alive, the soul resides in the body and all life-processes go on. Further, a worldly soul continuously obtains and sheds very fine particles of matter (karma) on account of its interaction with its environment. When the living being dies, the soul leaves the body along with the associated karma particles. All entities of the universe are eternal. So the soul does not perish upon the death of a living being. The soul assumes another birth on account of the karmas in
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